A spring religion reading list

Saturday

Feb 25, 2017 at 11:36 AM

By KIMBERLY WINSTONReligion News Service

In our quarterly quest for religion-oriented books you won’t find in the religion section, we noticed a trend — everything old is hot again. Half of the titles listed below are rooted in the the 18th century, another launches back to the 13th century and another goes waaaay back to pre-history. So put on your traveling clothes and crack one of these for fresh spring reading.

Fiction

“Lincoln in the Bardo” by George Saunders (Random House)

Saunders, whose short stories have won praise from such fiction luminaries as Junot Diaz, Jonathan Franzen and Zadie Smith, has produced his first novel. The story is spun from a handful of facts around the death of 11-year-old Willie Lincoln in 1862. President Lincoln is said to have been so bereft, he made nightly visits the crypt where Willie was laid to rest in a Washington, D.C., cemetery, holding the boy’s tiny body and grieving alone.

Faith factor: The “bardo” of the title refers to the Tibetan Buddhist notion of a limbo-like state the dead find themselves in where they must repent before they are reborn. The novel follows Lincoln on a single nighttime visit to the cemetery, where he is visited by a number of recently dead souls as they battle over Willie’s soul.

What the critics say: It is hard to think of a novel that has been more favorably reviewed since last year’s “The Underground Railroad” by Colson Whitehead — another novel in which a Civil War-era protagonist wanders through a kind of purgatory. Writing in The New York Times Book Review, Whitehead called “Lincoln in the Bardo” a “luminous feat of generosity and humanism.” The book is sure to be shortlisted for every major literary prize this year.

“Norse Mythology” by Neil Gaiman (W.W. Norton)

Considered a literary god by many of his fans (2.5 million of them, according to Twitter), Gaiman’s 11th work of fiction for adults is a modern retelling of the old Norse myths. And while Norse gods have played characters in his books before (see “American Gods,” soon to be a television series), this time they are alone on the stage, drinking, warring and generally mucking things up.

Faith factor: The book’s characters — Loki, Thor, Odin, Freya, Fenrir and more — are archetypes that pop up in numerous religions and cultures. Odin is something of a Christ-like figure who dies on a tree instead of a cross. Overshadowing all their myths is the coming of Ragnarok, the Norse version of the end of the world.

What the critics say: Writing for Vox, Constance Grady said, “Gaiman keeps his characters walking a fine line: They are powerful and immortal and divine and tragic, but they are also childish and peevish and petty. … (I)t’s how Gaiman plays between the two extremes that keeps this retelling fresh, vital, and compelling.”

Nonfiction

“The Book That Changed America: How Darwin’s Theory of Evolution Ignited a Nation” by Randall Fuller (Viking)

Fuller, an English professor at the University of Tulsa, travels back to 1859 and the publication of Charles Darwin’s “On the Origin of Species” to trace its effect on science, religion, education, abolition and, more specifically, on the lives and work of a dinner party full of 19th-century American luminaries — Henry David Thoreau, Bronson Alcott and Asa Gray, among others.

Faith factor: Asa Gray was a born-again Christian whose faith was deeply affected by Darwin’s work. He was instrumental in translating Darwin’s theory for Americans through articles and lectures and did not believe its acceptance had to be a challenge to religious faith.

What the critics say: “Fuller is a lively, engaging writer, with an eye for fascinating details” who has “mined this rich material with care and insight.” — Eric Foner in The New York Times Book Review

“Rumi’s Secret: The Life of the Sufi Poet of Love” by Brad Gooch (Harper)

Gooch traces the footsteps and the impact of Jalal ad-Din Mohammad Rumi, 13th-century Persian mystic poet who is one of the best-selling and most influential poets in the U.S.

Faith factor: Though Rumi was a Sufi Muslim, his work, with its emphasis on peace, love and interfaith understanding, has long been revered by Christians, Jews and others. Gooch pays particular attention to the relationship between Rumi and Shams of Tabriz — a kind of anti-Rumi — that alarmed many of Rumi’s followers. Gooch also sorts through the ubiquitous modern-day shower curtains, journals, greeting cards, T-shirts, wall hangings and jewelry adorned with Rumi quotes to examine why a fairly obscure medieval poet should have such a hold on contemporary Western cultures.

What the critics say: Kirkus Reviews described Gooch’s writing as full of “passion and insight.”

“A House Full of Females: Plural Marriage and Women’s Rights in Early Mormonism, 1835-1870” by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich (Knopf)

Ulrich, a Harvard professor, is that rare animal — a scholar of the highest rank whose work makes the leap from the classroom to the popular imagination. It was she who coined the phrase “well-behaved women rarely make history” in a 1976 article on Puritan funeral customs, and her 1990 book “A Midwife’s Tale” won the Pulitzer Prize and became an episode of PBS’ “American Experience.”

Faith factor: Ulrich looks at the roots of plural marriage in the Mormon church, ground that has been worked over in multiple books before. But she focuses on the women of one household — that of Wilford Woodruff, an early convert and eventual apostle of the church. Through diaries, public records, oral histories and her own family’s experience as early Mormon converts and settlers, she examines the household, emotional and spiritual support plural marriage brought to women.

“Ethics in the Real World: 82 Brief Essays on Things That Matter” by Peter Singer (Princeton University Press)

Best known for his work on animal rights, Singer, a Princeton University philosopher, riffs about big questions in little packages, such as: Should we live to 1,000? Is it OK to cheat at football? How much should sex matter? Rights for robots? Why vote?

Faith factor: Many of the essays tackle religious issues, including religious freedom, the place of women in Iran, Catholicism and population, God and suffering, end-of-life issues and more. Singer has long been a critic of religion.

What the critics say: “This book is the equivalent of a moral news conference, or a particularly good Terry Gross interview.” — Dwight Garner in The New York Times

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